


Like You Imagined When You Were Young

by ennta



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Kid Fic, Alternate Universe - Modern, Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Slurs, brief mentions of Celine Dion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-02-18 06:48:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2339045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ennta/pseuds/ennta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Renly/Loras anthology. </p><p>March 19th :: "the wind in my soul is never still" :: Renly and Loras need each other. Mindless smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Leather Jacket

A creak of rusty chains and the graceful slide of shadow at the corner of Loras’s vision announces Renly’s presence; he claims the swing beside Loras, long legs bent awkwardly between the seat of the swing and the patch of dirt worn into the earth by years of dragging feet. Loras glances sidelong through his tousled brown curls, watching and not watching all at once.

“You have anything to wear besides those thin-as-fuck cardigans?” Renly twists in his swing, knocking his knees against Loras’s thigh, his grin absolving his words of any sting as he reaches into his jacket pocket for a cigarette. Loras fights his own smile; Renly’s a couple years older, a fixture in these halls Loras isn’t quite comfortable navigating yet, and he often lies awake at night wondering what price tag comes with Renly’s companionship.

“What’s wrong with my cardigan?” Loras finally offers, brushing his hair out of his eyes so he can fix Renly with the haughtiest stare he can manage. But Renly catches him suppressing a shiver and smiles a little wider.

Renly pauses, reaches for his pack of Marlboros, offers Loras a cigarette. Loras takes it. (He always takes it, just to feel Renly’s fingers twitch close to Loras’s mouth as Renly coaxes a spark out of his lighter.)

“Well, for one,” Renly begins as Loras takes a drag, lets the transmuted warmth from Renly’s hand settle like fog in his throat and lungs, “florals in September offend me.” Renly laughs around a puff of smoke. “And secondly, I’ll be lonely if you catch pneumonia and leave me to play hooky all by my lonesome.” He jerks his head back toward the high school, toward the high brick walls they should be sitting behind, heads bent over homework in study hall.

Loras snorts, decides a genuine smile is safe enough at this point. “Leave it to you to figure my fashion choices will land me in the hospital.”

Another burst of laughter--Renly never stops laughing; it would annoy Loras if he hadn’t come to love the sound so much. Loras looks away to hide another smile, this one small and private and all too telling, and exhales a cloud of smoke into the light autumn drizzle.

There’s a rustle of fabric beside him, a creak of chains as Renly’s swing jerks back and forth, and then Renly is draping his sleek leather jacket over Loras’s slim shoulders, sealing the gift with a pat on Loras’s back that turns into warm fingers tracing the nape of his neck.

Loras shakes his hair forward to hide his blush but huddles back into the jacket all the same; twisted up in the black leather are scents of expensive cologne and peach shampoo and just enough smoke to remind Loras of bonfires in October.

“Keep that,” Renly finally says, and it’s almost an order, playful as Renly aways is. “I need an excuse to buy another one.”

“It doesn’t fit quite right,” Loras offers, finally meeting Renly’s eyes.

Renly smiles, a closed smile that’s all soft shy lips and no teeth. “Doesn’t bother me if it doesn’t bother you. It looks good anyway.”

Oh.

“It’s cool.” Loras stubs his cigarette out in the dirt and shrugs his arms through the jacket’s sleeves. He fumbles in one pocket to retrieve Renly’s cigarettes, hands them over with a gold lighter. “You might want these, though.”

Renly takes them, his fingers lingering for several moments too long in the exchange. “You’re right. Wouldn’t do for me to lose my excuse to meet you out here every morning.”

Loras doesn’t mention that he had never so much as thought of smoking until Renly sat next to him one day, cigarette extended like an offering to break the ice. He doesn’t mention that he’s never made a habit of skipping classes, because Garlan always finds out and giving Garlan blackmail material is at the top of Loras’s To-Don’t list.

But now, after three weeks of these swingset meetings, gauging and wondering and hoping, Loras is pretty sure he’s holding all the right cards. He meets Renly’s eyes, tilts his lips in a sly smile. “I think we’re a little bit beyond excuses.”

 

**(([part two](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2339045/chapters/6209264) ))**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I listened to while writing "Leather Jacket" was, shockingly, ["Leather Jacket" by Miesha & The Spanks](http://youtu.be/HzI1I1IKh6M).


	2. Hypothetical Telepathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonette has been reading too much Sookie Stackhouse. Loras has been eyeing the stranger in the corner all evening.

__

“I’d hate to be a telepath,” Leonette remarked as she and Loras wiped down another table one slow Wednesday night. Loras rolled his eyes as he tried to balance a dozen empty tumblers on a single tray while reaching for the dishrag tucked into his belt.

“I mean, Sookie’s a waitress, and she’s always hearing these _horrible_ thoughts about her,” Leonette continued, her ski-jump nose crumpling upward as she grimaced. She helped Loras steady his tray and continued talking, even as he made her very aware he was no longer listening by pointedly looking away.

He was watching the room’s lone customer, the single bit of human detritus left over after a long day in the Tyrell family’s famous Golden Rose diner. Loras rarely picked up shifts here, but Grandmother had refused his request for an advance on his rent, so he had spent a monumentally pointless double shift dealing with the public his sister-in-law Leonette and his older brother Garlan claimed to love.

The evening, at least, hadn’t been a total loss. The guy at the table in the corner was gorgeous, all long and lean, his legs on display in well-tailored skinny jeans and his arms flexing just right beneath a tight green v-neck whenever he turned the page of the heavy textbook he had been absorbed in since his arrival. Loras had enjoyed watching him whenever he got the chance, never quite going so far as to ask Elinor to swap sections with him, but definitely pondering other possibilities.

“I just don’t get why everyone is so fixated on Bill when Sam is _right there_ ,” Leonette continued as she and Loras headed back into the kitchen. “I blame _True Blood_. HBO can’t get _anything_ right--”

Loras managed a noncommittal grunt and dumped his tray full of dishes into the sink. He didn’t understand Leonette’s obsession with vampire novels, but he was at least glad she had moved on from _Twilight_. That had been a rough phase for Garlan, Loras thought with a smirk, rolling up the sleeves on his white dress shirt and beginning the menial, meaningless task of scrubbing plates and glasses clean.

God, manual labor sucked.

As soon as Leonette’s back was turned, Loras ducked away from the sink, grabbed a clean washrag, and headed for the front counter, where he could at least ogle the hot customer while pretending to wipe down the registers. The guy had tucked a strand of long black hair behind his ear, but his ponytail was an artfully shaggy mess nonetheless; Loras raised an eyebrow and pictured himself running his hands through that hair, tugging a handful at the nape of the guy’s neck to pull him in for a rough, thorough kiss.

Maybe he’d give the guy his number, Loras thought. Or, even better, just meet him outside behind the building, shove him up against the brick wall of the alleyway and press up against him, their bodies warm where they made contact in the chill October air. Or maybe he’d let the guy corner him; he had a weakness for strong shoulders pinning him down, a larger body caging him close and wrapping him up in a haze of sensation; he bet anything this guy would smell like expensive aftershave, taste like the coffee he had been sipping at for hours.

The guy glanced up, looked over at Loras, and Loras ducked his head, pretending to be very absorbed in a nonexistent smudge on the glass countertop. God, this guy was perfect, his face all strong angles undercut by soft, full lips and big blue eyes. Even in the dim light of the diner, Loras could tell how blue those eyes were, wondered what they’d look like colored dark with desire or heavy-lidded with pleasure.

He was trying to decide whether the ridiculously handsome stranger would be wearing boxers or briefs when Leonette bumped his elbow and fixed him with a knowing stare. “Now see, what if he were a telepath?” she accused.

Loras snorted. “Leo, I swear to God, you’ve got to stop reading those books.”

Leonette’s eyes sparkled dangerously. “But what if he _were_ telepathic?” she pressed. “And he knew everything,” she sing-songed, “that you’ve been thinking about him.”

Loras sighed and did his best to seem disinterested and disdainful. “He’d be flattered,” he stated. “And he’d have given me his number by now.”

Leonette let out a girlish giggle, the one Loras and Margaery liked to tease her for when she wasn’t being a pain in the ass. “Well, think something at him,” she teased, tapping Loras’s arm with the back of her hand. “Like, _if you can hear me, leave a damn tip and get out so we can close._ …”

Loras rolled his eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, watched the guy drain the last of his coffee and thought _Humor me and don’t cough_. 

The guy at the table nearly choked on his coffee.

Okay, so Loras knew, very logically knew, that the object of his attention wasn’t, _could not be_ telepathic, but that didn’t stop him from going pale, and it didn’t stop Leonette from letting out another little burst of laughter.

“Oh my God, Loras, I was just joking,” she teased. “Seriously though, give him your number or something. Might as well move on. It’s not like Olyvar’s waiting around.”

Loras scowled at the mention of his ex and resolutely turned his back on Leonette, because now he was seriously considering asking someone out after a good six months of petulant despair and Joy Division records. Well-deserved petulant despair, of course, because who dumps Loras Tyrell? Not juniors majoring in accounting who think they can hook up with Professor Martell and keep it quiet.

Loras was loudly opening and closing the cabinets underneath the counter in search of more Windex when a voice interrupted him.

“Hey.”

It was just one syllable, deep and a little husky, and Loras looked up into that stranger’s blue eyes and forgot, just for a moment, that he was Loras Tyrell, and Loras Tyrell was always in control of his situation.

“My name’s Renly,” the guy continued, lips tilting in a sly smile. “What time do you get off?”

_Whenever you decide to finish with me_ , Loras thought before he could help himself, and Renly’s cheeks colored just a little--although, Loras reassured himself, that could’ve just been a trick of the light.

“His shift actually ended about ten minutes ago!” Leonette called from the kitchen. She poked her head around the doorway. “You know. Just saying.”

Renly grinned at that, and if Loras thought Renly was gorgeous before, the way this smile played over his face, radiant and more than a little promising, managed to stop Loras’s breath in his throat. 

“I was going to stop for a stronger drink on my way back to campus,” Renly explained. “If--if you’d want to join me?”

Loras left so fast that he forgot to tell Leonette good night.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [this](http://nonchalantcroissant.tumblr.com/post/89689186407/au-prompt-person-a-is-thinking-sexually-graphic) Tumblr prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> _"AU prompt: Person A is thinking sexually graphic or generally odd thoughts and suddenly panics and thinks “If you’re a mind reader, cough right now.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _Person B coughs."_
> 
>  
> 
> I just couldn't help myself.


	3. We Don't Know the Meaning of Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margaery is seven, Loras a year older, and the sky above Highgarden is brightest when they play. A sibling interlude.

__

The sky rusts overhead, the steel of storm clouds dulled and worn away by summer showers, the scent of roses on a tentative wind that swirls and stops and swirls again, disoriented, around a weeping willow whose branches barely brush the ground.

Margaery sits cross-legged at the base of the tree, on a cloak embroidered green and gold, her small feet bare and her slender fingers braiding long grasses into a crown for her brown curls. She wears a pair of her youngest brother’s breeches and one of his tunics, because she can’t run through the meadows in the gowns her septa ties her into, and besides, she isn’t yet eight; surely the rules of ladies’ sitting rooms don’t apply to her yet.

Her youngest brother sits beside her, in the same sort of soft brown breeches and a threadbare tunic that Garlan passed down to him; their mother hates that tunic, threadbare as it is, faded from emerald to something like sea foam, but Loras refuses to part with it. Whenever he wears it, he plays at being Garlan, just how Margaery plays at being Loras, and somehow that seems right, to wish you were the sibling just ahead of you in line, to inherit a piece of them and work it into your own self.

Loras has charmed a stray kitten into their hiding place beneath the willow; the crown he had been braiding for his own hair is now prey for the yellow tom, dragged teasingly over and away from its sharp claws time and again.

“I’m taking this one home,” Loras informs Margaery, and Margaery nods absently, fingers still busy with her crown, because she doesn’t want to roll her eyes. Loras’s last two kittens had run away, and each time one disappeared Loras grew terribly inconsolable until their grandmother disciplined him for his unseemly behavior. And so each time his sorrow faded and he sought out a new challenge, a new cat to chase through the corridors after the maester released him from his studies.

Margaery doesn’t like this kitten, though; he’s a bristly sort, and when Loras scratches his stomach, the cat claws at his hand. Loras doesn’t move his fingers away, just continues to pet the cat as though he doesn’t feel the sting of its swipes.

“You’ll get your hands all bloody,” Margaery points out, but she reaches out, too, and her hand joins her brother’s on the cat’s soft underbelly, gentle on the vulnerable bits where a predator would tear instead of soothe.

“I’ll say I cut them in the training yard,” Loras shrugs, eyes on his newest acquisition. “And you’ll say you stabbed yourself bloody with your sewing needles.”

Margaery scoffs at that. “I’m a better seamstress than you are a swordsman,” she points out, lifting her chin a bit and waiting for Loras to scowl and contradict her.

His eyes narrow just as she had known they would. “I’m almost as good as Garlan,” he brags. _Lies_. Margaery smiles, noting the way his eyes flit away from hers. He scoops the cat up in his arms and places it in his lap, where it resigns itself to staying. Margaery can’t fathom how Loras tames stray after stray; Willas has tried to get him to adopt one of the silky sweet kittens bred in Oldtown for little lords and ladies, but Loras refuses them.

Personally, Margaery thinks he’s more enthralled by the chase than the catch: the seeking rather than the having. It’s rather like the way she loves to swing herself higher and higher from branch to branch in every tree within a morning’s walk from Highgarden’s walls; the bark beneath her hands and the wind on her face are far more inviting than even the open sky above her when she breaks the canopy.

“You’re not as good as Garlan,” Margaery points out absentmindedly. It’s the chase again, she thinks, the hours in the training yard that will one day lead to Loras challenging Garlan, to Loras besting Garlan and looking up to realize he needs to find a new tree, a new canopy, a brighter sky.

Loras hums his agreement, because he tolerates the truth when Margaery speaks it. Maybe he’s a part of her the way she’s a part of him, and so she’s allowed to share his mind, to tell him what he tells himself, even if he doesn’t like the way the words sound to his ears.

“What’ll you name him?” Margaery asks. She scoops up another handful of long grass and begins to braid another crown; she pauses to nestle the first crown on her head, then resumes work on the second. A crown for her and a crown for Loras and maybe even a crown for the silly little kitten now purring under Loras’s hands.

Loras’s hands still and he leans back on his elbows. The cat stays put on his lap, his claws kneading rough patches in Loras’s breeches.

“I’ll name him Leo Longthorn,” Loras finally says, as though the decision cost him something. Margaery giggles at his gravitas, at the way he stares up into the canopy of leaves as though he has found something particularly special in the way the wind stirs the branches.

“You named the last three Leo Longthorn,” Margaery points out, her words tumbling past her lips on a little giggle.

“But the last three ran away,” Loras insists, fixing her with eyes so like her own that she could just as well have been staring into a looking glass. “They were cowards. I should have called them after craven fools, not a great knight.” He scratches Leo Longthorn the Fourth behind the ears. “This one, though, he’s brave.”

Margaery finishes the second grass crown and reaches over to place it on Loras’s head. He ducks to let her nestle it into his curls, the same honey brown as her own. “Well, you’ll have to keep him away from Grandmother. I think she shooed the last one away.”

Loras scowls. “Well, she shouldn’t have done. Father wouldn’t be pleased if he knew.”

Margaery laughs at this, her mirth wide like summer skies and summer storms and secrets shared beneath willows. “Father won’t say anything against Grandmother. He’s afraid of her too, you know.”

Loras’s lips soften in a smile. “I’ll bet she used to chase him down the corridors with her cane,” he giggles, “swatting at his legs until he cried.”

The image made Margaery laugh even harder. “And then she would throw him in a pit of all the sharp-clawed tomcats she caught over the years--”

“--like a forest witch, she catches them and hides them in her rooms--” Loras adds,

“--and they’d scratch up father’s knees until he would tell Grandmother he was sorry for stealing sweets,” Margaery finishes, because she and Loras stole sweets from the kitchen once, and somehow Grandmother’s cane is less frightening if Margaery imagines it brandished at her father.

Their laughter subsides with the light of day, and Margaery sees, for a moment as the sun sets around them, what she and Loras will one day be: bright and shining, he a knight and she a lady, dressed for their respective roles but reaching for the heights of unknown trees just the same.

Leo Longthorn the Fourth closes his eyes, Loras’s fingers twitching over the nape of his neck, and Margaery rests her hand atop her brother’s. He smiles at her, and the scratches on her hand from the kitten’s claws sting like tears she hasn’t had to shed yet.

____

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on OneRepublic's _[Fear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKVq3yk9uk)_.


	4. you lie awake beside him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there's no time for uncertainty, but it lingers all the same.

you lie awake beside him,  
and tonight it’s different:

at the feast he spoke of marriage,  
and his eyes lingered too long on a lady in a blue gown. 

you lie awake beside him,  
tucked beneath the furs and silks of his bedclothes,  
so close that you could reach out and slide your hand against his,  
twine your fingers with his own,  
feel his pulse in his palm,  
read his dreams in the catch and release of his blood  
under thin, warm skin.

you lie awake beside him  
and imagine what it would mean to kiss him:

your heart responds by racing,  
chasing your blood through your body  
in a rush that makes you  
close your eyes.

you lie awake beside him,  
uncertain,  
because his eyes often linger too long on you,  
because you share his bed -- 

( _as a brother_ goes unspoken,  
but your brothers never held you gently  
or touched your hair with quiet reverence  
when you cried out at the violence of a storm)

\-- but in the shadows all is grey and so

you lie awake beside him,  
unsure.

you lie awake beside him,  
and tonight it’s different:

at the feast, his lips shone red with wine,  
and his eyes shone green and blue in turns  
as the candles caught and dispersed  
the hues of the jewels at his neck.

he was beautiful,  
far more beautiful than any woman  
in any state of dress.

you lie awake beside him,  
and tonight it’s different:

perhaps he was joking, at the feast;  
perhaps the lady’s gown caught his eye  
because he loves beautiful clothing,  
not because he desires beautiful women.

you lie awake beside him,  
and you hope and fear that tomorrow will simply be  
 _the same_.


	5. Leather Jacket Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loras manages a shaky smile. “So the jacket--I guess that’s you marking me, huh?”

**(([part one](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2339045/chapters/5155460) ))**

 

There’s a folded note wedged in the vent of Loras’s locker; it’s enough to draw his attention away from the word **F A G** scrawled in Sharpie across the rainbow bumper sticker just below his padlock. He’s glad Margaery bought him a good twelve or thirteen of those bumper stickers the last time they ran wild at a Pride event; he’s the school’s first openly gay quarterback, and the guys whose brains run on slurs and Sharpie fumes will be calling him a hero when he takes them to the state championships.

He unfolds the note, expecting a threat, another thick dark angry mark like the one on the bumper sticker, but then he recognizes Renly’s thin, spidery hand wandering all over the lined scrap of notebook paper:

_You look good in my jacket. Skip last period, meet me around back?_

Loras ducks his head a moment, letting the hair hanging loose from his short ponytail cover his smile. Renly’s jacket still hangs large in all the wrong places, but Loras has seen Renly watching him whenever he wears it; they don’t talk much inside the school, Renly holding court with Sansa Stark and her brothers or filling the hallway with his laugh as his posse of seniors trails behind him, but their shared moments on the swings, their lunch periods spent spreading bagged lunches out on an empty tennis court, have Loras aching for some sort of move to define the quiet, secret silence they’ve carved out for themselves.

He finds Renly in the corner where two edges of the red brick school building meet, leaning against the wall and staring into space, twirling an unlit cigarette in his hand.

"I look good in your jacket, huh?” Loras greets him, shifting until he’s mirroring Renly’s posture, offering a smile that falls somewhere between a smirk and a grin.

Renly’s cheeks flush red, but Loras could just as soon blame the autumn wind as he could his presence.

“You look better in it than I ever did,” Renly laughs, nudging Loras’s shoulder with his own.

Loras rolls his eyes and slides a hand into the pocket of Renly’s new jacket--leather, impeccably tailored, definitely designer--to retrieve a cigarette. Renly tenses a bit at the contact and Loras frowns.

“What, you don’t want to share anymore?” Loras tries to laugh but he feels like he’s choking, because what if he’s misread all of this? No one graffitis Renly’s locker, no one yells at him in the halls between classes; maybe Loras is doing exactly what the guys on the team worry about, projecting his feelings on a handsome upperclassman who isn’t even gay, isn’t even remotely interested, just overly friendly and --

Renly catches Loras’s hand before Loras can pull away. He meets Loras’s eyes, his own suddenly serious, and brings Loras’s hand to his lips, pressing soft kisses to his knuckles.

“Don’t want to share _you_ with anyone,” Renly mumbles against Loras’s skin, and Loras feels like his heart has gotten lodged in his windpipe.

Loras manages a shaky smile. “So the jacket--I guess that’s you marking me, huh?” His voice sounds unbecomingly hoarse to his ears.

Renly tugs Loras to his chest, his other hand coming up to slide around the back of Loras’s neck, his long fingers tangling in Loras’s hair. Loras wonders briefly when Renly dropped the unlit cigarette, and then Renly’s lips are on his, hesitant and warm, so fucking warm that Loras thinks he might as well be inhaling the heat off concrete on a sunny day. Loras relaxes against Renly’s chest, and that’s all the encouragement Renly seems to need.

Loras opens his mouth to Renly’s, breath shaky as Renly tilts Loras’s head so that he can deepen the kiss. It’s slow and thorough and so very, very sweet; Renly tastes like fruit, and his fingers tense as he tightens his grasp on the nape of Loras’s neck.

“Want you so bad,” Renly manages, his words nothing but breath and suggestion where their lips meet, and Loras has never been kissed like this, has never wanted so goddamn badly just to be kissed, but Renly moves his lips over Loras’s jaw, licking and nipping and marking, until Loras is lost in the small pocket of breathless shelter their bodies and whispers have created.

“Mmmm,” Loras agrees, then stifles a gasp and a sigh, his mouth going slack as Renly sucks on his earlobe, bites it gently, works it between his full lips.

“You wanna come home with me after school?” Renly whispers into the jut of Loras’s jaw, the words wet and heavy with promise. “I could help you with your homework.”

“Homework.” Loras can’t quite breathe. “Yeah.” He swallows. “Um--homework. Definitely.”

Renly huffs a laugh against Loras’s throat. “If we leave now, we’ll have at least two hours before my brothers get home.”

Loras nods, dazed and breathless and fairly certain he’ll die of this tension burning him inside out if they don’t get back to Renly’s _right now_ , and Renly has the same look on his face, that same urgency and hope, and in the end they only make it to the back seat of Renly’s car before they’re pushing each other’s jackets off.

And _God_ , Renly must have some sort of master certification in kissing, because that’s all it takes, that and their limbs tangled in a space that’s much too small, the friction between their grasping, pressing bodies too much despite the fabric of their jeans between them. There’s no room for anything but quick, desperate thrusts against one another, but always, _always_  Renly’s mouth slides against Loras’s throat or his ears or his lips, even as their exhalations grow labored and their bodies stutter and jerk and still in a strange stilted haiku.

After, Renly rolls down a window, grins at Loras, lights a cigarette.

Loras plucks it from his lips, takes a drag, and grins back.

 


	6. The Partition, Please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Holidays. Have some smut.

 

__

 

“This is going to be a miserable evening,” Renly muttered, fidgeting with his cufflinks. “I don’t have any idea why the hell you’re so insistent on attending this fucking farce of a Christmas dinner Robert’s throwing.” He hadn’t spent Christmas with his family in years, not since he and Loras started dating and the Tyrells opened their entirely-too-festive but not-at-all-homophobic doors to him.

Loras had made himself at home in the limousine Robert had sent to drag the two of them from their city apartment to the Baratheon family's sprawling country estate, filching bits of oranges and peaches from the fruit-and-cheese platter laid out on the bar for them. In response to Renly’s question, Loras merely shrugged, licking juice from his fingers and continuing to open and close cabinet drawers in search of god-knew-what.

“We always go to my family’s for Christmas,” Loras eventually said, his attention still on the hidden wonders Robert’s limo had to offer. He came up with a corkscrew and set to opening the bottle of wine set in an ice bucket near the fruit platter. “Shouldn’t we visit your brothers for a change?”

Renly rolled his eyes and ignored the peach slice Loras held out to him. Loras shrugged and popped the fruit into his mouth, washing it down with a swig of wine directly from the bottle. He held the neck loosely in one hand as he continued to rifle through drawers beneath the bar.

“Oh, this is nice,” Loras chuckled, opening the last of the drawers. “Three boxes of condoms, six bottles of lube--I think your brother sent us his sex limo.”

Renly felt a sudden desperate urge to be anywhere but trapped in a vehicle that could be termed Robert’s “sex limo,” but throwing himself out the tinted windows didn’t seem to be an option, so he settled for bouncing one leg up and down and crossing his arms tightly across his chest.

“The bacon-flavored lube is mostly gone,” Loras remarked, wrinkling his nose up as he closed the drawer of mildly inappropriate paraphernalia. “Straight guys, am I right?”

“I don’t want to think about my brother and his bacon-flavored hooker parties,” Renly grumbled. “Because this is just the beginning of the most awkward night since we lost our virginity in that house we thought was abandoned.”

Loras snorted. “You act like Old Manderly didn’t appreciate the excitement.”

“Well, he did chase us out into his family graveyard with a shotgun,” Renly pointed out. He shook his head. “No. No. I will not let you distract me. If you think tonight is going to be anything other than unbearable for everyone involved, you’re not thinking clearly.”

Loras didn’t respond to that, just stretched out lazily on the leather seating hugging one of the limousine’s sides. He sat up just enough to take another swig from the bottle of wine, then handed it off to Renly, who drank obligingly before setting it back on the bar. Loras wasn’t even paying attention to him, was just staring out the sun roof with his hands behind his head, humming a Christmas carol.

Suddenly it was all too much: Renly could imagine the insults Cersei would sling, the judgmental looks from Selyse and Stannis, Robert’s crude innuendos, the complete and utter disrespect Renly had always been granted at every family event, even before he made the mistake of coming out--

“I’ll make it up to you,” Loras promised. “When we get home--”

When they got home, Renly would want nothing more than a long shower to wash off the dirty looks and cruel words of a family he would much rather go without seeing. Loras wasn’t even _looking_ at him, wasn’t even _trying_ to understand--

“You’ll make it up to me _now_ ,” Renly growled, surprising himself, and his words brought Loras’s head up, made his eyes widen and his mouth twitch into one of his unbearable smirks.

“Will I?” Loras grinned and stretched, his arms above his head so that he was spread out, long and lithe, under Renly’s gaze, his brown curls falling into golden eyes that had gone from disinterested to sly, almost predatory. “How do you want me, then?” He sat up, reached across the limo for another peach slice, bit into it and let the juice trickle down his chin.

Renly’s skin grew warm as he watched Loras lie back down against the plush leather seats, and he took another swig of wine before crossing to Loras’s side of the limo. Without thinking, he straddled Loras’s chest, keeping his weight on his knees as his fingers undid Loras bowtie and tugged it free of his collar.

“Want you to shut up,” Renly hissed, dragging the pad of his thumb over the traces of peach juice on Loras’s chin, bringing it to his mouth to taste it. He slid his hands up Loras’s outstretched arms until he could wrap the bowtie around Loras’s slim wrists, tie it in a sloppy, loose knot, watch Loras’s eyes darken as they flickered from Renly’s face to the bulge in his skintight trousers.

Loras pursed his lips, then licked them shiny as he forced Renly to hold his gaze; despite being held down, Loras seemed perfectly at ease, and the dark glimmer in his brandy eyes had Renly reaching for his fly.

“Thought you were going to shut me up,” Loras murmured, his voice as low and dark as that spark of lust in his eyes, and Renly had his cock out fast enough that Loras chuckled. “Go on,” Loras prompted, undulating his trapped body in a way that tipped Renly that much closer. “Shut me up, then.”

Renly took his cock in hand and ran the head over Loras’s full lips, Loras humming encouragement and teasing him with long licks and soft, promising little kisses until Renly couldn’t stand it anymore. He groaned in relief when Loras opened his mouth, guiding his cock between Loras’s lips, against his tongue, filling him even as Loras pinned Renly with half-lidded eyes. Renly reached down to cup the nape of Loras’s neck in one hand at the same time Loras pushed forward, giving Renly permission to take control.

Renly thrust into him harder then, grasping at Loras’s hair to guide his movement; Loras moaned, the sound muffled, and his eyes fluttered closed even as he worked his tongue in a way that drove all rational thought from Renly’s brain.

“Jesus _fuck_ ,” Renly gasped, his hips jerking forward, lost in the slick shine of Loras’s lips, of the heavy wet sounds Loras made as his mouth took Renly’s cock. Renly closed his eyes, thanking every god he could think of that Loras lacked a gag reflex in the same way he lacked any shred of propriety.

Suddenly, though, Loras surged against him, snapping the tie holding his hands in place and pushing Renly away, down off the leather seating and onto the floor of the limo. Loras landed on top of him, breathless, straddling Renly’s groin and pressing his own erection into Renly’s.

“You’re too gentle, babe,” Loras panted, grinding down against Renly. His voice was hoarse and Renly could see smears of precome on his lips and chin and jaw. Painfully hard, Renly couldn’t bring himself to regret the noise he made when Loras crawled down his body and knelt between his legs.

“Thought you were supposed to be shutting me up with this,” Loras smirked, squeezing the base of Renly’s erection as he lowered his head to take Renly in his mouth again. Loras set the pace this time, fast and sure, his head tilting and dipping, his whole body moving as he worked his way over every ridge and vein of Renly’s cock, over every sensitive bit of skin he had discovered in their years together.

Renly’s head swam, his brain shut down against the sheer pleasure of this, his hips jumping, his hands bunching one in Loras’s shirt, at his shoulder, and one in his now-tangled hair. Loras’s hands wandered, too, one sliding up under Renly’s dress shirt to trace warmth up and down his ribs, the other down the back of Renly’s trousers, kneading his arse, correcting and changing the position of his thrusts ever so slightly until Renly was whispering Loras’s name, gasping it--

And then Loras changed the rules again, stopping and pushing himself to his knees, his hands fumbling with the zipper on his own dress pants, his eyes glazed over as he took in Renly’s flushed skin, his wrinkled dress shirt, the dress pants and briefs pushed down over his thighs.

“Don’t think I’m going to let you get off without me,” Loras grunted, and Renly was so _fucking goddamn hard_ , so fucking desperate, that when he pushed himself up to face Loras, his hands were already reaching out to pop the buttons on Loras’s white Oxford shirt, to slide the garment over Loras’s shoulders and trap his arms in his sleeves. Renly heard fabric tear, but he was beyond caring as he pushed Loras’s trousers down, as he shoved Loras back against the leather seats and kissed him, his lips bruising, his tongue and teeth betraying his impatience.

Loras arched into the kiss, getting his hands free of his shirt sleeves and reaching up as though to tangle them in Renly’s hair.

“No.” Renly pulled away and met Loras’s eyes, grabbed his wrists again. “I’m too gentle, am I?”

There was no mistaking the way Loras’s eyes lit up at the edge of authority in Renly’s voice, no missing the hitch in his heavy breathing as Renly pushed Loras around until he was bent over the leather seats, Renly folded across his back.

“Is this what you want?” Renly hissed, biting Loras’s jaw, licking the shell of his ear. “Want me to fuck you so hard that you think about it every time you sit down?” Loras just moaned in response, pushing himself back against Renly, and suddenly it was imperative that Renly find that cabinet drawer full of shit Loras had laughed about earlier.

Renly pulled away, and Loras tried to lift his head to see what Renly was doing, but Renly caught hold of the curls at the nape of Loras’s neck and pressed his face back into the leather. With his other hand, Renly fished out a condom and a small bottle of lube, groaning at the sight of Loras bent beneath him, shirt long gone, trousers bunched around his knees.

Renly hastily twisted the cap off the lube, spilling it into one palm, dripping it onto the carpet as he worked a finger into Loras. Loras groaned at that, pushed himself back against Renly again, and Renly stilled his hand, using the fist still bunched in Loras’s hair to jerk his head back.

“I move, you don’t,” Renly ordered, and slid a second slick finger in beside the first, careful to keep from brushing that sweet spot he knew Loras wanted him to hit. Loras was grinning that infuriating grin he wore whenever he liked how Renly had decided to play the game, and Renly bit down on Loras’s bare shoulder as his fingers spread and pressed and readied.

“Oh God, get _on_ with it,” Loras breathed, and his voice was shaky enough to make the command sound more like a plea. _That_ , Renly liked, the knowledge that Loras would beg for him; Renly fumbled with the condom, fitting it over his cock and pushing into Loras with one hard stroke that drove them both further up across the seats. Loras managed an inarticulate cry of pleasure, and Renly grabbed him by his slim hips, panting as he slammed into him--

“ _Harder_ ,” Loras choked out, his hand on his own cock, and Renly shifted, changing his angle so that Loras cried his name on the next thrust, and the next and the next and the next until Renly couldn’t control himself anymore, until the cloying scent of peaches and sex and wine and the feeling of Loras clenched tight and hot around him finally sent him reeling over the edge.

Still panting, Renly buried his face in Loras’s neck, reached around to grab Loras’s cock, to find a rhythm that had Loras crying Renly’s name again and spilling into his palm.

Renly pulled away, rolling off the condom and throwing it in the discrete wastebasket beneath the bar. Loras had done up his own trousers by the time Renly looked back at him; when Loras caught Renly’s eyes, he grinned.

“Did I make it up to you?” Loras asked, that sly shark’s smile on his lips, and Renly grabbed him by his belt loops to pull him in for a kiss.

“I can cross ‘fucking in a limo’ off my bucket list,” Renly admitted against Loras’s lips, and he felt Loras smile into the kiss.

They pulled away only when the limo came to a halt, and Renly belatedly realized he had torn Loras’s shirt beyond repair and lost several buttons off his own coat. Loras laughed at the blush spreading across Renly’s face; he was doing the buttons on his own jacket up high enough that his missing shirt might not be noticed, and Renly followed his lead, trying to look more artfully ruffled and less ‘just fucked my fiance in a limo.’

When the chauffeur opened the door, Renly liked to think he and Loras were more presentable than not, but Robert’s driver was blushing up to his ears, and Renly felt his face heat up to match. He supposed there was no reason to assume the partition had been soundproof, although that would have been nice. …

It was Loras who broke the awkward silence, offering the boy a handful of cash and a brief nod. “You might tell Robert to have the upholstery in the backseat cleaned,” Loras remarked as though he were commenting on the weather.

The driver scurried off, leaving Renly and Loras staring up at Robert Baratheon’s hideously over-decorated country manor. Loras reached out for Renly’s hand, brought it to his lips to kiss Renly’s knuckles with a haughty smirk.

“We’ll have to thank Robert for sending the sex limo, don’t you think?”

Renly rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep a smile from his face as he reached out to tuck Loras under his arm. Together they made their way up the front steps and between the marble columns to the front door. “Best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten from him, I think,” Renly remarked, and then he rang the doorbell.

__

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brought to you by Beyoncé's [Partition](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ12_E5R3qc).


	7. Dowry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some customs are just ridiculously outdated.

  
__  
  


There were several thousand places Loras would rather be:

He thought the gates of hell were probably particularly balmy this time of year, and there would be less pressure on his shoulders at the bottom of the ocean than in this tastefully appointed sitting room, under Penrose’s watchful and utterly bemused gaze.

The moon was probably nice. Likewise a dead end in the catacombs of Paris, or a nightmare starring Freddy Kruger and Loras’s ever-helpful brother Garlan.

But Loras had never backed down from a dare, not even when Garlan made him eat a bowl of rose petals at a fancy family function and pretend they were a salad. (Grandmother _still_ went on about that at length whenever she saw an opening. There were _reasons_ Loras never ate salads in public anymore.)

“So,” Penrose began. “Your brother told me you’d be by to ask me a question.”

Loras nodded, gritted his teeth, plotted revenge. Garlan stood in the doorway behind him, his broad shoulders blocking Loras’s escape route, a bright grin splitting his bearded face as he brought his iPhone out to record his latest stroke of brotherly genius.

“It would be my honor,” Loras managed through clenched teeth, “if you would allow me to ask for Renly’s hand in marriage.”

Penrose leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Would it now?” He pretended to think. “Would there be a dowry? I confess I could use a few sheep, I’ve taken up knitting and I’d like to start dyeing my own wool.”

Garlan snorted loudly and Loras spun around to glare at him.

“Okay, that’s it, I asked,” Loras spat, aiming an accusing finger at Garlan’s chest. “This is ridiculous.”

“I’d just like to know I’m getting a fair price for him, is all,” Penrose continued. He smirked over Loras’s shoulder at Garlan. “I’ve raised him since he was a boy. I want to make sure he goes to a good man.”

“He’s _twenty-seven_!” Loras exclaimed. “We’ve been living together for four years! _He picked out this ring_!” He whirled on Garlan. “You. Just because Leonette’s father demanded you adhere to some--some misogynist show of chivalry--you decide  _I should have to ask for Renly's hand--_ ”

“Margaery’s been teaching you some big words, huh?” Garlan chuckled. He pressed a few buttons on his iPhone before sliding it back in his jacket pocket.

Footfalls sounded in the hallway behind Garlan and Renly appeared behind the older Tyrell, a frown on his face. “Look, I know I was supposed to wait in the linen closet until you gave the signal, but I’m only worth a few sheep?” He looked so horrified that Penrose and Garlan laughed.

Loras’s mouth dropped open and he shook his head mutely. “That. That’s what you’re upset about? And what do you mean, you were supposed to wait in the linen closet?”

Garlan moved aside to let Renly into the sitting room, and Renly went straight to Loras, putting an arm around his shoulder and tugging him close despite the glare Loras had trained on him.

“I thought this would be good payback,” Renly explained to Loras.

Loras frowned. “For what, exactly?”

Penrose chuckled. “Renly here said you initially tried to propose to him over Snapchat.”

“So?” Loras’s frown deepened. “I was out of the country and I didn’t feel like waiting.”

Even Garlan sighed at that.

“We do lots of things over Snapchat,” Loras pointed out.

“Don’t want to know,” Garlan and Penrose chorused as Renly protested, “But that’s _different_.”

Renly took both of Loras’s hands in his own and swung them back and forth. “I know you think I’m a hopeless romantic--”

“--but you’ve been planning your engagement and wedding since you saw _Titanic_ ,” Loras finished for him.

“Ideally he would be marrying Leonardo DiCaprio,” Penrose chipped in. "I always fancied having Jack Dawson in the family."

Loras glared at Penrose over his shoulder, then reached inside his pocket for a small black box. He dropped to one knee and carefully opened the box, holding it out so that Renly could see the sapphire surrounded by diamonds and set in a silver band. “Renly,” Loras said solemnly, “will you marry me?

Renly’s grin was wider than Loras had ever seen it, and the glimmer of tears in his eyes was enough to make all the embarrassment of the evening worth it.

“Of course I’ll marry you,” Renly murmured thickly, taking Loras’s hands and pulling him into a tight embrace. “But our first dance is going to be to Celine Dion.”

Loras just held Renly closer, oblivious to the fact that Garlan had his iPhone out again, recording the entire scene, and Penrose was still smirking at all of them.

Loras tipped his head up to kiss Renly gently. “Babe, I’ll book her to sing it in person.”

__

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, this was ridiculously short and saccharine. Ideally their first dance would be to Celine's drippy masterpiece [I Know What Love Is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7It1LKZnQY), because I love it unironically and think Renly would too.


	8. The Churches Have Run Out of Candles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lasts and firsts, but not necessarily in that order.

 

 

Loras did not throw the first shovel full of dirt into the grave until night had fallen.

Instead he lay with his king at the very bottom of the earth, scents of grass and soil heavy in his mouth. He pretended the richly-woven cloak wrapped and tied with silks about his king's lifeless form held something besides sorrow, but even cold and stiff, Renly's weight was too familiar to wish away.

_I could plant us both here_ , Loras thought feverishly, and then, flush with tears and the exertion of a gravedigger, _perhaps Renly will grow warm again here, perhaps he will sprout from the earth, a rose, sweet and ruddy with the fires of summer burning in his blue eyes._

_Perhaps I will kiss him again, and his lips will part for mine, and we will grow together --_

_We will grow old,_

_We will grow strong,_

And then, as the sun faded behind the canopy of trees, as shadows swallowed sunlight, one last coherent thought:

_He will never grow again._

Loras laughed. He laughed at the sky and he laughed at the gods and he laughed at the way the dirt swallowed Renly up into it.

He pretended he was planting roses with Margaery.

 

❀

 

The minstrels sang a song the night Loras won his first tournament, and it displeased him, because it was a song of loss that some pretty-headed southron maiden requested;

_When the sun has set,_

_No candle can replace it,_

went the refrain, and Loras only rolled his eyes at the melancholy of it all. He wished to hear of knights and champions and bawdy adventures in taverns, and so he had shouted requests at the minstrels all night as his head filled with sweet wine.

Renly teased him for it later, teased him first with words, then with his mouth and his big hands, then with skin and breath and fingers slicked in rose-scented oil.

"You want them to sing songs of you," Renly whispered, heavy over Loras as he pressed into him, his heat and scent catching Loras in a soft haze. "Their sweet summer knight, their knight of flowers."

Loras didn't bother to deny it, too caught up in relearning how to breathe. "They'll sing of you too," he offered, as their bodies shook and stilled and parted.

Renly laughed at that, shifting on the mattress as he wrapped Loras up in his arms. "They'll sing of a vain little lord who prefered to skewer men with the lance between his legs rather than his lance on the battlefield."

"They'll sing of the beautiful lord paramount of the stormlands," Loras slurred against Renly, his fingers idly combing through the dusting of dark hair on Renly’s broad chest. "They'll sing how his eyes shone blue and green and gray like the seas his castle sat on."

This time, Renly's laugh was low and sweet. "My, wine renders you a poet."

Loras frowned. "No," he protested softly. "You do that."

Their candles burned out

and the sun rose.

 

❀

 

Loras kept the cloak, Renly's favorite, the green velvet cloak embroidered with finely-wrought golden stags. He had not had time to see to the rest of Renly's things, not with the burial and the battle, and when the stench of soil and blood finally faded from his skin, there was only the cloak left.

He wrapped himself in it some nights, trading his Kingsguard whites for this garment that amounted to treason, and Margaery sat beside him on the bed, stroking his hair to coax him to sleep.

If he tried hard enough, Loras could still smell the soaps and perfumes Renly had loved on the cloak ( _peach and lilac, jasmine and rose_ ), and he would wake sometimes, in the soft dim hours before dawn, thinking Renly's arms were tight around him.

 

❀

 

The first time Renly took him to bed, Loras shook with nerves and barely-contained excitement. Through the stretch and the dull ache and the eventual sharp twists of pleasure, Loras could focus on nothing but Renly's broad shoulders above him, on the way Renly’s long black hair fell over them both as he closed his eyes against the pleasure Loras gave him, as his kisses grew hurried and sloppy and urgent.

Afterward, Renly was beautiful; bare and long-limbed, skin shining in the firelight, he sprawled across the bed as his breathing slowed to normal and his blue eyes began to flutter closed in sleep.

"Lie with me, Loras," he whispered, trying to tug Loras back against him.

Breathless and giddy despite the catharsis of his own release, Loras only grinned. "I thought I just did," he offered.

A crooked smile ghosted across Renly's lips. "Hold me, then," he entreated.

Loras stretched out over Renly's spent body, his arms going to wrap around Renly's slim waist, his legs tangling with Renly’s.

"That's better," Renly mumbled into Loras's brown curls. He yawned as his arms crushed Loras to him, and Loras lay awake until the light from the window turned grey. He lay awake and watched Renly's chest rise and fall, watched his eyes flutter behind closed eyelids, watched the dawn slowly illuminate his features.

The fire burned down to embers,

and the sun rose.

 

❀

 

Loras saved the letters, too. Granted, he had been saving them for as long as Renly had been sending them, but now the small locked box he kept them in was a prized possession, even if he could no longer bring himself to open it and read the contents.

He didn't want to see Renly's careful handwriting crawling across the parchment, didn't want to read his words over again, because he would only hear Renly's voice in his head and miss him still more.

But sometimes Loras would hold the box in his lap, run his fingers over the golden roses and green vines carved into the sides, and think about opening it, think about the soft words laid out on soft parchment, about soft touches on soft skin.

One evening he stole away from King’s Landing, down to the shore where the stars shone clear and the wind blew cold off the water, and threw the key to the chest into Blackwater Bay.

 

❀

 

It rained the first time Renly showed Loras to the clearing, and they sheltered under a lilac bush, the violet blooms falling around them as the wind bid. Renly laughed, because Renly always laughed, and Loras pressed close to him, closer than friendship allowed, close enough that the warmth of their bodies sealed them together against the storm.

Loras raised his eyes then, tilted his chin, watched Renly’s breath catch when he realized just how easy it would be, how natural, to reach out--

Renly slid one palm up against Loras’s cheekbone, long fingers tangling in Loras’s hair, and tilted him closer, until their lips brushed one another’s, the touch soft like lilac blossoms and hot like lightning. Loras parted his lips to feel Renly’s breath against his mouth, to memorize his warmth, and prayed the summer storms would never end.

But in time the clouds parted,

and the sun shone.

 

❀

 

Loras waited for death on Dragonstone, waited for the Stranger to arrive and dole out his last mercies. The sound of rain on stone never ceased, even when Loras drifted into dream; and even when he dreamed, he could not see Renly’s face clearly. He wished for delirium, wished to be laid in the earth with his king, wished to remember the wrinkles at the corners of Renly’s smiles, wished for anything and everything besides this dark, cold room.

The candles burned out,

but the sun found no footing in their place.

 

❀

 

Loras was ten, head held high as he lead his chestnut mare through the gates of Storm’s End, a cloak of green and gold about his shoulders. His first glimpse of his new lord surprised him; Renly was only a boy himself, a bit taller and broader than Loras, but a boy nonetheless, and a boy far comelier than the stable boys Loras and Margaery had stolen kisses from at play.

There was something in Renly’s eyes when the sun caught them, a warmth like that of the sun on Loras’s shoulders, a warmth like summer and songs and candles and stolen gulps of wine filling one from cheeks to toes. Loras dismounted and bowed before his lord, his words of introduction fumbled as though his tongue had grown too large for his mouth, and then Renly pulled him to his feet, a smile on his face.

“There’s no need for ceremony, Loras,” Renly insisted, slinging an arm about Loras’s shoulders as though they have been friends for years. Loras startled at that, but Renly took no notice, leading him into the castle, talking loudly as they passed dining halls and libraries, kitchens and servant’s quarters.

“It’s not a bad place,” Renly finally concluded, “for one to grow strong.” He grinned at his own joke and Loras couldn’t help but grin back.

“For one to grow strong,” he agreed. A good place to plant a friendship, as his family had hoped; a good place for it to grow old, and grow strong.

And Renly’s heart, Loras hoped, would prove a good place to plant a rose.

 

❀

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from Rufus Wainwright's [Candles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3memwh4u_dQ).


	9. Thirty-Two Shades of Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Renly's seventh birthday and no one's paying him enough attention. Kid fic.

*

Renly didn’t care. He really didn’t. He was seven years old, he had a new coloring book, and Penrose was baking him a cake. He was too grown up to cry, so he just gritted his teeth and colored harder, until the crayon he was using snapped. Shocked by the sudden _crack_ , he simply stared at the crayon, one half still in his fist, the other a jagged shard in the crease between the coloring book’s pages.

He wouldn’t cry just because Robert said it was too far to drive and Stannis had to lead a church youth group study session. _On his birthday._ He wouldn’t cry just because it was summer and everyone else-- _Loras and his family_ \--had somewhere better to be than at his house. _On his birthday_.

Any tears Renly shed were for the crayon: emerald green, his favorite color. (He could use it to color the dinosaurs _and_ the jungles around them.)

“Oh, Renly.” Penrose sat down at the table next to him, turned just enough that Renly could scramble into his lap. (Even though he was too big to fit comfortably anymore.)

“ _It’s my favorite color_ ,” Renly tried to explain between hiccuping sobs. He placed the second half of the crayon reverently beside the first and closed the coloring book around them before burying his face in Penrose’s shoulder.

“I know, Ren,” Penrose assured him. “I know.” 

“ _Now I can’t make the trees the right color_ ,” Renly cried. 

“You’ve got other green crayons,” Penrose tried to reason with him.

“They’re not the _right_ green,” Renly insisted. He wiped his nose on Penrose’s shirtsleeve, prepared to launch into an explanation (seafoam green was too light and forest green too dark, and turquoise wasn’t even _green_ ) when the doorbell rang. Renly peeked up at Penrose, making a monumental effort to hush his sobs. “Can I get it?” Renly whispered, already staring hopefully over Penrose’s shoulder into the living room, where the front door waited like a present to be unwrapped.

Penrose let Renly slid off his lap. “Of course you can,” he allowed. “It’s probably just the mailman with a package, Ren. Your brothers--”

“Maybe it’s Robert!” Renly called over his shoulder, wiping his eyes on his own sleeve and hoping his face wasn’t too red. “Maybe he said he couldn’t be here just to surprise me--” He flung open the door, and there was Loras Tyrell, his freckles standing out against the summer-dark tan on his brown skin, his mane of shoulder-length curls tinted golden from exposure to the sun. 

“It’s your birthday,” Loras said, holding out a gift bag half as large as he was.

“You’re on vacation with your family,” Renly responded. Loras was his best friend in the entire world--possibly the universe, though Renly wanted to leave room just in case there really were aliens--but he and his family always spent July on a cruise ship or at their lake house in the Ozarks or somewhere else that was dreadfully far away.

“I left because it’s your birthday,” Loras explained simply, pushing past Renly and into the house. He hopped onto the couch and set the gift bag at his feet. “Are you going to open this or not?”

“I wasn’t crying,” Renly felt the need to establish, sitting down on the couch beside Loras. Penrose watched from the kitchen doorway, his arms folded across his chest.

“Loras, is your family back early?” Penrose asked.

“Nope.”

“How did you get here, then?”

“I called a cab.”

Renly ignored them, too focused on the gift bag now that Loras was here. At least someone remembered him and brought him gifts and treated him _properly_. He rummaged through the tissue paper until he found a card, a glittery card with a cat in a party hat on it. Renly made a noise of approval and opened the card; when he did, it meowed, and so he opened and closed it very quickly a half dozen times to prove its efficacy. On the inside of the card there was another cat in a party hat, and Loras had scrawled “Its YOURE birthday, good job, Love Loras” in crayon underneath it.

“And who rode in the cab with you?”

“Just me. Mom wouldn’t come with and Papa said to go play in the pool. I had to tell the cab driver they were dead."

Renly placed the card reverently on the coffee table and squealed with delight when he saw what filled most of the gift bag: Coloring books and boxes of crayons, _two_ giant boxes with all different colors and then one box, the smallest, with _thirty-two shades of green_. A Jumbo Dinosaur Activity Book! Two books of _Beauty and the Beast_ puzzles! And those thirty-two shades of green! Forest green, seafoam green, mint green, lime green--and Renly’s favorite, emerald green.

The phone rang, then, and Penrose ran off to answer it.

“Do you like it, then?” Loras asked. “I tried to take out the other crayons and make a pack that was only green, but the saleslady stopped me and showed me the pack that was _already_ all green.”

Renly grinned, at the crayons and at the card and at Loras, and threw his arms around his friend, burying his nose in Loras’s curls. They smelled like cinnamon. Loras always smelled so good, like cake or cookies or muffins, and Renly liked having a friend he could hug without getting cooties. (He knew cooties weren’t real, but he avoided hugging Brienne just in case.)

Loras patted Renly’s back. “There there,” he managed, and Renly giggled because Loras sounded like his little old grandma when he said that. Renly let go of Loras as Penrose ducked back into the room, the cordless phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder.

“Alerie, Alerie, listen, he’s here,” Penrose was soothing, “Loras is right here, he just wanted to bring Renly a birthday present, that’s all. I think he has your credit card, he bought a whole bag of crayons and coloring books--no, I know you’re not worried about the money, I just thought you’d want to know--”

“You didn’t tell your mom?” Renly worried.

Loras shrugged. “I told her I was going to bring you a present.”

“But what if you’re in trouble?” Renly pressed. Penrose had retreated back to the kitchen, but his muffled voice didn’t sound terribly relaxed.

“I told them I would be here.” Loras looked down at his hands, then back up at Renly, his brown eyes serious. “I told them we had to be back for your birthday. You’re my boyfriend, after all.” He leaned in to kiss Renly then, a quick peck on the lips, and Renly blushed.

“Wanna go color in the kitchen?” Renly asked shyly, tugging on one of Loras’s curls. 

Loras grinned at him. “Only if I get to use all the turquoise crayons.”

Renly wrinkled up his nose. “You know turquoise isn’t blue and it isn’t green. I don’t like it.” 

But really, Renly didn’t care. He didn’t care that Robert was three states away and Stannis was twenty minutes away and neither of them were helping him celebrate his birthday; he didn’t care that his favorite crayon had snapped in two; he didn’t care that the fire alarm was going off because Penrose hadn’t taken the cake out of the oven.

He was seven years old, his boyfriend had stolen his parents’ credit card to buy him presents, and the world looked a little brighter all around.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by Natasha Bedingfield's [Backyard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLRJORLARPE).


	10. the wind in my soul is never still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need you,” Renly breathed into Loras’ mouth, and Loras nodded, his forehead bumping Renly’s, his heartbeat picking up speed as Renly pushed him back against the wall and crowded up against him.

***

The apartment door slammed and Renly stalked in on a gust of winter air, his briefcase hitting the wall with a dull thud. He already had his gloves off by the time Loras turned away from his cutting board and ventured out of the kitchen, and Loras had a moment to register the storm on Renly’s brow before Renly’s mouth was on his, open and demanding, Renly’s hands in his hair, curling hard enough to almost hurt.

“I need you,” Renly breathed into Loras’ mouth, and Loras nodded, his forehead bumping Renly’s, his heartbeat picking up speed as Renly pushed him back against the wall and crowded up against him. Loras reached out to get his hands on the buttons of Renly’s peacoat, but Renly growled and grabbed his wrists. 

“I need you,” Renly repeated, pulling away enough that Loras could see his eyes losing focus, could feel the power in the deep thrum of his voice.

Loras’ breath caught. “Have me, then,” he managed, and then his wrists were pinned to the wall as Renly surged forward to claim his mouth again, all teeth and tongue and wild abandon. Renly let go of Loras’ hands and Loras wrapped his arms around Renly’s shoulders; he could feel the tension in the set of them, the muscles working, the blood churning beneath Renly’s skin.

One of Renly’s hands stayed curled in Loras’ hair, holding his head against the wall, as the other tore at Loras’ shirt, cleaving it down the middle, letting buttons spray the carpet. Renly worked his hand down Loras’ exposed skin, down to his hips, his fingers brushing below the waistband of Loras’ jeans before rising to tug at Loras’ belt.

“Get this out of my way,” Renly ordered, and Loras complied, fumbling as he undid the belt buckle, his fingers meeting Renly’s on his fly. Renly squeezed Loras’ cock through the denim, pausing his conquest of Loras’ mouth to bite at his neck as his hand travelled down to cup Loras’ ass. Loras closed his eyes, his breath leaving him in a long gasp as Renly slid a finger into him without warning and then stopped, his entire body going still, his teeth on Loras’ shoulder; Renly waited a beat, a thunderstorm on the horizon, and Loras drew in a shaky breath, more than ready for the downpour.

“I need you,” Renly whispered, this time to the bruise he had no doubt left on Loras’ skin, and Loras’ response was the same:

“Have me.” _Have me like the snows grey the sky in the winter, like the lightning lights the clouds in the spring_. Loras took advantage of Renly’s stillness, trailing his hands down Renly’s broad chest, undoing his dress pants and carefully, reverently tracing the outline of his cock through his briefs. “Have me,” Loras murmured again, and when Renly looked up his eyes were grey like waves breaking on the rocks beneath a November sky, and he swallowed tightly, nodded, loosed his fingers from Loras’ hair, brushed them down across his nose and his lips, two fingers pressed close as though to hush him. 

“Open,” Renly commanded, and Loras sucked at Renly’s fingers, pressing them to the roof of his mouth, wetting them as Renly pressed a second finger inside Loras, stretching and pushing until the burning ache built a fire in Loras’ stomach. Renly withdrew his fingers from Loras’ mouth and went in for another kiss, messy and wet and open-mouthed, Renly’s second hand joining the first, his wet fingers replacing the dry, and Loras rutted up against him, as though Renly’s impatience had spread through their skin and infused Loras with a sudden, desperate need.

Renly slid his fingers out of Loras and grabbed his hips, hoisting him up against the wall, getting an arm under Loras’ ass and maneuvering him down the short hallway to the bedroom, his movements sure and strong as Loras felt his knees go weak. Loras was on his back on the bed before he could take another breath, Renly ripping his jeans off, tearing his underwear down over his knees, covering Loras’ cock with his hungry mouth as he pinned Loras’ hips to the bed.

Loras made a guttural noise as Renly pulled away, trying to get his breath back as he heard Renly artlessly rifle through the bedside table for lube and a condom. The room was dark enough that Loras only saw Renly’s back in silhouette as he heard the condom wrapper open, Renly’s shoulders going taut as he rolled the condom over himself before crawling over Loras, a predator cornering his prey.

Renly’s hands were slick now, still insistent as his fingers pressed into Loras, and he bit into Loras’ skin again when he finally pushed into him, the sensations sending Loras’ body into a tailspin, the rough, hot pulse of Renly’s cock inside him juxtaposed with the sting of Renly’s teeth and the warmth of his breath on Loras’ skin.

Loras scratched at Renly’s shoulder blades as Renly moved against him, Renly’s hips snapping hard and relentless, the clothing he had tugged down just enough to free his cock soft as it rubbed against Loras’ thighs. Loras choked on a moan as Renly drove into him, pounding him into the mattress, leveraging himself so that he hit Loras’ prostate on every other thrust; Renly’s mouth moved up Loras’ throat, leaving dark aching spots and quick, sharp scratches of teeth. 

“ _I_ ,” Renly huffed, “ _need_ ,” -- thrusting so hard Loras saw spots behind his eyelids -- “ _you_ ,” stilling on the next thrust, as deep in Loras as he could get, and then he was moving again, pushing Loras up the bed with every rough motion, one hand still holding Loras down, the other pulling at his hair, as though Renly couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get deep enough, and when he came Loras’ could feel the warmth through the condom, could feel Renly’s heart racing in the way his hands began to shake.

When Renly collapsed on top of him, Loras pulled Renly’s face into his neck, ran his fingers through Renly’s mess of black hair. 

“It’s okay,” Loras whispered, Renly hot inside him and around him, Renly’s breath hitching as he rode out his release. Loras shifted so that his own cock, throbbing and leaking from Renly’s ministrations, rubbed against Renly’s hip, and he moaned a little at the friction before Renly slid his hand from Loras’ hip to his cock, rubbing and squeezing so slowly that the tempest of a moment before seemed almost impossible.

“I love you,” Renly murmured then, tugging gently at Loras’ foreskin, swiping precum from the head of his cock and using it to smooth the sweet, agonizing slide of his large palm. “I love you so much. I need you so much, I always need you.”

Loras closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to Renly’s cheek, his breath speeding up as Renly moved his hand just so. “I know, Ren. I know.”

When Loras came across his stomach and Renly’s hand, Renly finally pulled out of him, disposing of the condom in the bedside wastebasket as quickly as he could before sprawling out over Loras again. Dazed, Loras could only wrap his arms around Renly, tracing the bumps of his spine with gentle fingers. 

“They don’t understand,” Renly finally mumbled into Loras’ skin. “They think I’m just--they think we just--”

Loras sighed heavily. “Your brothers?”

A heavy pause. “You like it, though? What we do? When I hold you down? I’m not--I’m not just using you, I _need_ you.” Renly buried his face in Loras’ hair, just below his ear. “I need you.”

“Well.” Loras tugged Renly closer, noting absently that he was still mostly clothed. “Maybe I need you to use me. Fill me up and tear me down until I’m empty of everything but you. Maybe I like that, hmmm? I need it, and you need it, and maybe I need it because you do or it's the other way around, or maybe it's just us fitting together--but whatever it is, it's okay."

The noise Renly made was somewhere between a huff of laughter and a sob, and he held Loras to him as though he were drowning. Need, Loras decided, was a funny thing; the world needed winters with their furious blizzards; the world needed spring with its roaring and rain; need had no set definition, no innate right and no innate wrong. Loras nuzzled at Renly until their lips met again, soft and sweet, to kiss the truth of it all into Renly’s waiting heart.

If the way Renly’s body shuddered at the press of Loras’ lips was any indication, it worked.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's music is _[Hunger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWn4NyhMHhw)_ by Christopher Cross.

**Author's Note:**

> This series is just a way for me to get back into writing, so if you have any Renly/Loras prompts you'd like to see filled, shoot me a message on my Tumblr, [ennta](http://ennta.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Lastly, comments and constructive criticism are welcomed and encouraged.


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